NDSA:Geospatial

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Scope

The Geospatial Content Team is interested in exploring challenges and solutions to the long-term preservation, stewardship and accessibility of digital mapping information.

NDSA:Draft Mission Statement

Team Facilitators

• Brett Abrams

Team Members

Listserv now happening at NDSA-GEO@LIST.DIGITALPRESERVATION.GOV The list archives are at http://list.digitalpreservation.gov/archives/NDSA-GEO.html

We formerly used a Google Group to facilitate electronic communication and to track members: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ndsa-geospatial-subgroup

We also maintain a spreadsheet of participants with contact information, but this is updated less frequently.

Draft Definition of At-Risk Geospatial Content

The geospatial content group has defined at-risk data as that which they take in, collect and/or maintain based on an established collecting policy, schedule, or agreed upon appraisal decisions, recognizing overlap between federal, state and local government

We define "data at risk" in this context as scientific data which are not in a format that permits full electronic access to the information which they contain. Such data may be inherently non-digital (e.g. handwritten or photographic), on near-obsolete digital media (such as magnetic tapes) or insufficiently described (lacking meta-data). Some born-digital data can also be considered "at risk" if they cannot be ingested into managed databases because they lack adequate formatting or metadata. Data which are regarded as unuseable tend to be regarded as useless, and then risk being destroyed. Most of the non-electronic data in question pre-date the digital era, and where they complement more modern ones by offering a much longer time-base they are essential, sometimes vital, for studies of long-term trends

Current Activities

• Industry Outreach: Archives and Libraries act in conjunction with geospatial users in government to meet with ESRI and discuss need for published or open formats.

• Appraisal: Continue to explore the appraisal issues around geospatial data for long-term preservation, including (a) the stages when data might be preserved (raw, intermediate, or final stage, all, some); (b)leverage work being done by the FGDC Users/Historical Data Working Group ); build on GeoMAPP appraisal efforts.

• Spatial Data Infrastructure: Leverage SDI activities happening at all levels of government to benefit the long-term preservation of geospatial information of value to the nation. From the FGDC web site:

"Consistent means to share geographic data among all users could produce significant savings for data collection and use and enhance decision making. Executive Order 12906calls for the establishment of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure defined as the technologies, policies, and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and the academic community.

The goal of this Infrastructure is to reduce duplication of effort among agencies, improve quality and reduce costs related to geographic information, to make geographic data more accessible to the public, to increase the benefits of using available data, and to establish key partnerships with states, counties, cities, tribal nations, academia and the private sector to increase data availability."

• Proprietary vs. open formats: Discuss the challenges and opportunities with dealing with different formats. Prepare case studies on format issues or on particular formats. Address "emerging" "current" and "waning" formats. Explore format "openness" (For background information reference blog posts here and the perspective of the new Esri DC Development Center here).

Build on GeoMAPP format work and Library of Congress Sustainability of Digital Formats work.

• Rights and Access: Explore copyright and other rights issues that challenge the access to and preservation of Geospatial Data: (a) copyright, licensing and legal implications of language such as indemnification/hold harmless clauses in data distribution agreements; (b) administrative metadata for dealing with access rights (c) Costs/fees for obtaining local public geospatial data and implications for archiving (i.e. continually purchase new versions based on retention schedule?)

• Work to Compose and Disseminate Technical Best Practices for geospatial preservation: (a)File formats, naming conventions and best practices; (b) Export feature classes out of geodatabases and archive as shapefiles?; (c) re-name files for archiving purposes, but retain link (via database?) back to original file from original data producer? (d) share organizational workflow demonstrations with the group.

• Metadata: Document ISO standards, preservation standards, preservation-based metadata formats as they relate to long-term stewardship. Actively participate in standardization activities through OGC, ISO, FGDC and organizations such as ASPRS etc.

• State GIS Clearinghouse Issues: Continue to explore the role of state GIS Clearinghouses and their relationship with local data providers and the details regarding the data transfer between the two: (a) acquisition of data (by the clearinghouse) on specific schedules; (b) data sharing agreements between the two entities; (c) definition of framework layers and those preserved vs. not preserved (appraisal process) in an eventual archive; (d) metadata and minimum documentation required by both clearinghouse and archive

• At-Risk Data Issues: Explore challenges related to Orphan works and leverage existing efforts such as the IEEE Group on Earth Observations Purge Alerts and the ICSU/CODATA Data at Risk Inventory to identify stewards for at-risk and endangered data.

Meetings

Next meeting is schedule for:

Wednesday August 22 at 11:00 a.m. EASTERN.

Meeting Minutes

No call held in July 2012

NDSA:Geo June 2012

NDSA:Geo May 2012

NDSA:April 2012

No call held in March 2012

NDSA:February 2012

Speakers Series

Invite industry representatives to discuss their products and their engagement with long-term stewardship issues: Terrago, ESRI, SafeSoftware, Adobe geospatial folks, Spatialite, LizardTech, etc.

Potential Future Meeting Topics

• Archives & Libraries need to meet with industry to discuss need for published or open formats
• Find location for geospatial data an entity desires to purge (see CEOS Purge Alert system at http://wgiss.ceos.org/purgealert/)
• Appraisal - what data needs to be preserved (we all have thoughts on this topic)
• Understanding state GIS Clearinghouse relationship w/local providers and transfers
• Electronic records management
• Archiving GIS data/metadata
• FGDC to ISO 19115 NAP impacts
• Storage & Access Infrastructure
• USGS experience with the NARA Affiliated Archives/Affiliated Relationship Program
• NARA Electronics Records Archive (ERA) and geospatial records